Barack Obama

[laughs]

... on President Obama's plan to shrink carbon emissions 30% by 2030.

The hearing's Sisyphus, presidential science advisor John Holdren, charged with the impossible task of pushing a million pounds of idiot up a mountain.

[laughs]

And they all think alike.

You know, they all voted for Obama.

And, you know, they, they, they have all these different, you know, that, things that they put on us because we all do the same thing, right? Um, that does not apply to them.

They, they come from different, uh, varying levels of education, uh, socioeconomic status, and reasons for joining the Klan.

I, I understand why you voted for him or her.

I, I don't agree, but I understand now." And then, and once you listen to them, chances are they will reciprocate.

"So let me tell you why I voted for, you know, uh, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris, or whoever else, Obama," whatever.

Um, and then they'll, they'll be willing to listen.

I wonder if it got the attention of a certain individual, uh, over there at the White House.

Uh, now, Jill, speaking of presidents and their approaches here, former President Barack Obama was, uh, asked about this, uh, late last week, and he said Democrats should take the lead here on developing, uh, an aggressive AI policy here, and that AI should be the center of the Dems' agenda here going into midterms in twenty twenty-eight.

Senator Bernie Sanders has been among those saying, "We gotta hit the brakes.

We are racing off a cliff here." And so he's been one of the most vocal anti-AI voices in American politics, uh, in response to the essay and sort of this agreement over the weekend as Dario, uh, Amodei said, "We should do something." And Sam Altman said, "Sure we should." And Elon Musk said, "Yeah, I agree." And Google said, "Yeah." And Microsoft said, "Sure." Okay.

So I got a little huffy about it, right? But then of course, I read this whole article anyway, and it turns out it's a limited series of six episodes about the books that he says, "Have stayed with me throughout my life, and each one has something to teach us about the human experience." He's also quoted as saying, "At a time when fewer people are able to sit down with a book, it's important to remember the joy and power that can come from reading." And of course, that's a message we can all get behind.

So on that note, I do wish for great success for former President Barack Obama for his new podcast, A Great Book with Barack Obama, but I also beg and plead that it's really only six episodes.

[laughs] Like-

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Um, and then there's another episode he did with Obama in 2016 in Vietnam-

Yeah, right

... uh, from "Parts Unknown" that's, that's well-regarded.

Meanwhile, Democrats aren't waiting for the industry's ideas.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says Dems will meet this week to discuss AI, while former President Barack Obama is urging his party to make AI a central issue in the upcoming elections.

To be continued.

The Middle East conflict seems to be widening, now putting even more of the world's oil supply at risk.

And look, that's certainly, that would be my take on it, is that Donald Trump will, will leave Ireland now.

And, you know, any other previous president, if they came here and they said that, you would take it very seriously and very literally because, you know, if you imagine Bill Clinton during the, uh, you know, Good Friday peace process, if you would imagine Bill Clinton had said something as openly as that, or if Joe Biden had said it when he was here, if Barack Obama had said it when he was here-

Yeah

... obviously that would've-

So Democrats aren't just confronting Trump anymore.

They're confronting a rogue presidency that's fundamentally more powerful than the one they occupied during the Clinton, Obama, and Biden presidencies.

which creates a pretty challenging question for Democrats.

What happens when they get the keys to the castle? Do they give those presidential powers back or do they use those powers? So we decided to ask.

By 2011, Facebook was first credited for the Arab Spring, then blamed for its violent suppression.

In 2012, Republicans complained that Facebook aided the re-election of Barack Obama, whose campaign bragged openly about its deft use of the platform's targeted advertising.

In 2016, after the election of Donald Trump, the nascent civil war between the Democratic Party's three major factions—the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, and the New York Times— was resolved by mutual agreement to scapegoat not Obama for creating Trump, nor Clinton for running an entitled and uncharismatic campaign, nor the Times for breathlessly covering Clinton's email controversy, but Zuckerberg for allowing disinformation and Russian interference to brainwash voters.

as if such horrors hadn't previously been possible, and as if no other communication system could have been used instead if Facebook and WhatsApp hadn't existed.